The revolt of state university professors against transformative plan isn't unique to Connecticut

The revolt of Connecticut state university professors against a transformative plan developed by a high-priced consultant and backed by the administration has grabbed headlines recently, but it's a showdown that has been repeated elsewhere across the country.

As state college systems like Connecticut's struggle with shrinking state dollars, declining or flat enrollment, and a demand that tuition be kept under control, leaders are hungry for strategic plans that will help ensure a healthy future in the dramatically changing world of higher education.

But as has happened in other states, professors in the Connecticut State Colleges and University system contend that the plan — called Transform CSCU 2020 — appeared to be more about streamlining and cost-efficiencies than about improving the educational experience for students. The professors pushed backed forcefully, saying it lacked academic focus, and refused to endorse it in its current form.

"Certainly, this scenario has arisen in multiple states in recent months and will do so increasingly," said Daniel Hurley, an associate vice president with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "There will be an appropriate and natural tension inherent in the process.

"I think it's logical and rational for the faculty to cast a wary eye. There is always the fear that higher education is going to be increasingly seen as solely a business enterprise ... as opposed to the broader aspects of what colleges and universities embrace with teaching, learning, research and service."

On the other hand, Hurley said, from a leadership perspective there is a desire to "react and change in response to the multitude of forces out there that are really demanding change in higher education."

A similar dispute has unfolded in Minnesota, where students and faculty are objecting to a plan developed at a cost of $2 million by McKinsey & Company for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. The chancellor of the Minnesota system has called for mediation with two faculty unions to work out disagreements over the plan, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In Maine, students and faculty have also lashed out against a plan to cut programs and personnel.

World Class System

Soon after his arrival in July 2013, Gregory Gray, president of Connecticut's Board of Regents for Higher Education, began talking about the need for a strategic plan to address the declining economic and enrollment issues affecting the state university and community college system and to turn it into, as he said repeatedly, "a world-class system."

In April, at Gray's request, the Board of Regents endorsed hiring the Boston Consultant Group at a cost of $1.8 million to help develop the plan.

The plan, which has been discussed over the past few months, includes more than 30 initiatives with 743 milestones that are designed to unite the four state universities, 12 community colleges and the online Charter Oak State College into "one interdependent system."

The plan aimed to "improve student experience and degree completion, expand academic and workforce training programs, and build stronger partnerships with the state's manufacturers and business community," all while keeping the cost of education as low as possible and achieving "unparalleled excellence."

The faculty didn't see it that way. They had questions about initiatives that talked about "academic program optimization," emphasized the strengthening of online learning, and called for "shared metrics" that included a "performance-based funding approach to metrics."

They also felt that they had not been involved in the development of the plan in any meaningful way, feared that it would wrest control of the curriculum from faculty and that it took a "one-size-fits-all approach rather than acknowledging the distinct missions of the 17 institutions in the state system.

In late September, faculty leaders at the state universities put together their own "academic imperative" in which they wrote that the plan "lacks an underlying vision that supports and builds on the academic mission of a state university." They talked about the need for more, or at "at the very least, stable," state funding, adding that "full-time faculty lines have been cut, student support services understaffed, class sizes increased, and courses necessary for on-time graduation canceled."

In the past two weeks, that academic statement has been endorsed by faculty at Southern, Eastern and Western Connecticut state universities.

In addition, the Faculty Advisory Committee to the Board of Regents for Higher Education produced a resolution on Nov. 14 that said Transform lacked a "focus on academic excellence, consolidates our distinct missions, is so vague as to be meaningless and removes autonomy from local institutions in a manner that has enormous and negative consequences for the educational experiences for our students.'

"In short, it is neither transformational nor aspirational," the resolution concludes, and "we cannot endorse Transform CSCU 2020 in its current form."

Since then, faculty union for the state universities and the largest union for faculty and staff at the community colleges have endorsed the resolution, as have faculty leaders at Southern. Faculty at Eastern and Southern also awarded a letter grade of "F" to the Transform plan.

It was in that climate that a group of faculty leaders met Friday with Gray in what appears to have been a pivotal meeting.

After two hours of conversation with Gray, Vijay Nair, president of the American Association of University Professors for the Connecticut State Universities, said that the faculty leaders are now "cautiously optimistic that going forward, we will be able to work with President Gray's office better than we have been in the past."

Nair said that Gray agreed to key guiding principles including the preservation of the distinct missions of the individual institutions in the system.

"This is very important and it will be one of the values on which all planning by this system will be based," Nair said.

In addition, he said Gray agreed that the faculty will retain control of the curriculum and be involved in planning and policy decisions.

Nair said that faculty leaders who attended the meeting will also look close at the Transform plan and report back, possibly before Christmas, on what should and shouldn't be included in the report.

Gray was not available for comment Friday.

Recently, in response to the faculty outcry on Transform, Gray extended the period for input on the plan by two months. It was supposed to have been submitted in January.

William Faraclas, president of the faculty senate at Southern Connecticut State University said. "I think today we clarified the important role that the faculty must have in putting together any plan that will focus in on the quality of education."

Faculty, as well as students, have been critical of the board's decision to hire a firm known for its business consulting to come up with an educational plan, arguing that the university system had experts who could have provided that assistance.

Justin Ahern, a sophomore at Eastern Connecticut State University, said "hiring an outside consulting group will not solve the problems facing higher education in Connecticut. Talking to the students, faculty and administration that live their lives at CSCU, and are proud of it, will.

"I think that Dr. Gray is trying to run the CSCU system as a business, and I'm not buying what he's selling."

Charles S. Lenth, vice president with the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, said the use of business consultants is new in higher education, but that it can be "valuable," but "just a little tricky within the higher education environment."

"There's no question that more and more institutions are needing to examine their revenue streams and their budgets and their cost patterns and the markets they serve … things that business consulting deals with all the time."

But he said, "the whole notion of a more businesslike orientation is typically something that faculty don't easily warm up to and support." He said the "notion of spending a lot of money for people outside of higher education is not always well-received."